


Into the Fathoms Below

by SleepyKalena



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (but it's also kind of resolved), F/M, Human-Merfolk Political Drama, Pre-Relationship, Slow Build, The Little Mermaid AU, They both walk a fine line of half-truths, Unresolved Romantic Tension, but they so badly want to say more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 09:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19422769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyKalena/pseuds/SleepyKalena
Summary: Humans and merfolk never interact with each other. In the rare instance that they do, it always ends in death- a price humans have paid.And yet, despite these warnings, Cassian was here, on land, in her kingdom, serving in her navy, speaking and finless and withfeet. Jyn wanted to tell him that she knew who hereallywas, where he was from, how she knew he was present in so many chapters of her life, but their difference in rank and his decision to stay entirely silent about his identity created a wall between them. All she wanted to do was get to know more about the man she'd grown attracted to with each passing month, especially now that they're finally able to speak to each other.This was her chance. And as Steela always said:Walls are meant to be surmounted.[A sequel AU toPart of Her World, through the eyes of Jyn.]





	Into the Fathoms Below

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ivaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/gifts).



> If you haven't read [Part of Her World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13482720/chapters/30915162) yet, I very strongly recommend you give it a read before proceeding with this one! I've tried my best to make it the least reliant on the original work as possible, but it helps a hell of a lot more if you read it beforehand.
> 
> I mentioned a headcanon to [Ivaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo) about Cassian's merfolk culture that I decided to omit from the original fic, but apparently she loved it so much that she even [drew a fanart of what she thought the headcanon might look like](https://crazy-fruit.tumblr.com/post/172652032832/kehehehe-sleepykalena-damn-you-and-you)! Fast-forward one year later, she requests a "mermay fic", but Life happened and it took me much longer to write this out than I intended (it's also a lot longer...i'm not even remotely sorry about that).
> 
> Anyway, I hope this adds to some world-building that I've always had about it!

Jyn fidgeted nervously as she gazed upon the door in front of her. The door itself was harmless; it was light, albeit a bit heavier than the doors on her own ship, and certainly cleaner and free from scratches by comparison to boot. The paint itself wasn’t in the best shape; the color had dulled over time and the sheen was never going to be quite like the doors in the palace, but it still managed to be mildly pleasing to the eye. It wasn’t aggressive, it wasn’t imposing, it wasn’t scary.

And yet she couldn’t muster the bravery to rap her knuckles against it.

 _This is nonsense, this is pure nonsense_ , she told herself; why was she this nervous to even knock on a silly door?

But no matter how much she wanted to pretend and claim otherwise, she wasn’t scared of the door so much as what was behind it.

“Is someone there?” a voice rang from the other side.

She stiffened. _I’m here to check up on you, Sergeant_. That was all she had to say. Just a few simple words.

“Checking!” she sputtered instead.

Silence.

Jyn closed her eyes in frustration at her own lack of composure. Holding speeches and hosting events for thousands of her subjects in the kingdom? Easy. Serving as Steela’s most trusted naval officer and commanding her own ship? A bit of a challenge, but nothing she couldn’t take.

Checking up on one of her sergeants in the infirmary? Apparently impossible.

She was embarrassing herself, surely she was.

“...I’m sorry?” the voice said.

Jyn huffed out in relief at the second chance. She cleared her throat. “Checking up! I’m checking up on you, Sergeant- are you decent?”

“Decent at what?”

The embarrassment flooded back- she forgot about the possibility that he hadn’t cottoned on to the euphemisms of her language.

_Plain words, Jyn- use plain words._

“Er, it’s a phrase. I’m asking if your appearance is appropriate enough for me to enter the room.”

The feeling washed away just as quickly as it came when he responded with a casual, “Oh, yes, come in!”

This was it. She had to open the door. And then stand on the other side of it.

Alone.

With him.

The midday sun was bright and inviting as it shone through the modest window in the even more modest resting quarters. Jyn tried to keep from blushing at the way Sergeant Cassian Andor’s hair sparkled under the sunlight as he sat up on his bed. The strands almost glittered like the ocean just outside.

As it did when they kissed just over a year ago.

It was easier to look at Cassian when the sheets covered his legs; despite that it had already been a few months since he washed ashore and she took him in, she still wasn’t quite used to seeing him in anything other than his own fins. Hell, she still remembered her shock at seeing him with two functioning legs when the castle sentries carried him in.

Well, semi-functioning, based on how he stumbled over himself trying to stand when he finally came to.

He looked at her curiously. “What’s on your mind, Captain?” he asked.

There was plenty on her mind: Why is he here? How is he human? Where did his gills and fins go? Does anyone else know about him and the fact that he’s a merman?

Tempting as it was to ask him all those questions, she couldn’t very well act as though she knew what he was, especially not when Cassian himself chose not to say anything about it.

“I was told that visitors were allowed now that you’ve had the night to rest,” she said instead, keeping her posture straight and her tone professional.

“Ah, yes, well, thank you. I hope to fully recover soon. Can’t afford to burden you,” he replied, but his eyes soon widened at his word choice, and he quickly added, “or the rest of the crew.”

She was never one to smile politely while acting as Captain, but she did respond with a curt, but warm nod.

The formalities were killing her. Jyn so badly wanted to tell Cassian that she knew who he _really_ was, where he was from, how she knew he was present in so many chapters of her life. And maybe, just _maybe_ , she could have the courage to tell him that what started out as a mild infatuation to his appearance slowly became a steady attraction, and that she wanted to get to know him even more.

But before that- more importantly- she wanted to thank him for saving her life.

...and apologize for that spur-of-the-moment kiss.

“I’ve had much bigger burdens,” she said with a subtle smirk. It seemed to reassure him, and his shoulders relaxed.

“I’m not sure I want to know what they were,” he chuckled, and lowered his head slightly to move some stray hair aside.

Jyn suppressed her curiosity when she started to wonder if his hair was as soft as he made it look.

“Well,” she began to recount. “I’ve shot dead many a traitor, and you’ve already seen the men I’ve thrown overboard.”

Cassian shrugged. “That’s what happens when they think princesses can’t also be sailors.”

“They forget that death sentences are still by order of the throne.”

“A bright princess with a much darker side,” he teased.

His sense of humor caught her so off-guard that her jaw slackened in surprise. Was _this_ how he acted when he’s relaxed?

Her shock must have been obvious, because Cassian clammed back up, straightened himself on the bed, and cleared his throat. “My apologies, Captain, that was rude of me.”

Jyn pursed her lips. It was already bad enough that she couldn’t afford to bring up the well-kept secret of the existence of merfolk to an actual merman, and now they’re clearly holding themselves back due to human social conventions.

She sighed and took a seat at the lone chair at the foot of his bed. “Let’s drop the formalities for now, Cassian,” and she noted the subtle widening of his eyes at her use of his given name rather than his last name or rank.

“I’m not sure I understand, Captai-”

“Seriously, cut the crap, Cassian. You’ve served under my flag for more than a half-year now and you’ve easily become one of the best men I’ve had in my crew. If Bodhi wasn’t already my second-in-command, it would most likely have been you by now. I think we can both afford to speak to each other with a bit more familiarity, at least while that door is closed.”

His mouth opened again, ready to protest, but his eyes drifted to the side, contemplating, weighing the options as though he were testing the logic of it all, before ultimately closing his mouth and nodding. “Understood...um…”

“It’s just you and me here- you can call me ‘Jyn’.”

“Right. Underst- er, got it, Jyn,” he said finally, and Jyn tried not to grin too hard at the sound of her name flowing out of his lips.

“So tell me, Cassian,” she started, taking advantage of the newfound opportunity, “What caused you to wash ashore on my kingdom? You were out of sorts when you first came to, and you didn’t speak much English then.”

Cassian frowned slightly and his already thin lips nearly disappeared as he pursed them. Though he cocked his head to one side thoughtfully, as though he was trying to recall a memory, it was obvious to her that he was in the process of choosing his words _very_ carefully. Clearly, he wasn’t ready to tell her that he was a merman, else he would have begun to explain it by now.

As much as she wanted to encourage him to tell her that he’s a merman, that she knew they were real, that his secret would be safe with her, she couldn’t blame him for choosing to keep quiet. For every myth she was told about merfolk and how they were a race of monstrous freaks that sunk ships and drowned children, she could hardly be surprised if his kind similarly had myths about humans. In fact, based on the tales she overhead from drunken braggart sailors abroad, she was almost sure there were more than enough human horror stories to scare young merfolk.

Having spent her entire life focused on self-preservation, she respected Cassian for trying to protect himself.

“I’m actually not sure how I washed ashore in your kingdom,” he responded finally. “I don’t know anything about your land. But that’s why I can say for sure that I’m really far from home.”

Jyn noticed the heartfelt, if a bit lonely, undertone of his voice. But something was off- though his sentences were broken in ways typical of the average foreigner speaking her language, Jyn knew that, accent aside, his fluency was much better than this. rather, he worded his response in order to stay as honest as possible without revealing the whole truth.

_Plausible deniability; very clever, Cassian._

If there was anything being royalty taught her, it was knowing exactly how to read between the lines. His meaning was clear to her: _I don’t remember what actually happened at the time I washed ashore, because I was unconscious. I don’t know what land is like because I come from the depths of the ocean._

If this was the game they were going to play- could she even call this a game?- then she was open to playing by his rules. What else did she want to know about Cassian?

_What does he like to do in his homeland? Do they have similar societal structures as humans? Is he perhaps royalty, like she is, or maybe works closely with them? Would he possibly be able to understand what life was like for someone like herself?_

She nodded and hummed thoughtfully. “How professionally cryptic,” she chided playfully. “You speak the way royalty is trained to speak.” That seemed like a good place to start.

Cassian chuckled and looked shyly out the window. “No, I’m definitely not royalty. But it’s not bad to think about, always being cared for because of your status.”

 _He’s just a regular, run-of-the-mill merman_. One detail down.

“It’s got its perks, but most times I just want to enjoy things on my own, without so many people breathing down my neck,” Jyn sighed.

“At least you get to be close to home when you’re not out at sea,” he added. She knew those words were meant to be cheerful and reassuring, but the yearning in his voice was just a touch too strong, and her heart ached just a little to hear it.

“Sounds like you’re homesick,” she said, more softly this time.

He looked out to the seas beyond, and his eyebrows upturned subtly with longing. “I think you’re right.”

Jyn placed her hands on the foot of Cassian’s bed, and she rested her chin on top of them. It was necessary, if she didn’t want to lose her composure and get up to reach out and squeeze his hand. “I recognize that look- Bodhi looks like that when we’re out at sea for too long.”

“Does it ever get easier?” he asked, still looking forlornly out the window.

She bit her lip. _It doesn’t, not really._ _But-_

“On some nights, before I go to bed, I think about the things I love about home,” she offered. “It seems counterintuitive, but if the thoughts are happy enough, I cheer up a little.”

Cassian looked back at her blankly, as though the idea were entirely foreign to him.

“What sort of home things do you think about to cheer up?” he asked suddenly, and his curious, engaging gaze made her catch her breath.

Surprising as it was for him to turn the tables on her by asking a personal question himself, Jyn couldn’t help but feel a smile creep across her face as she closed her eyes and let out a dreamy sigh as she recounted the memories: “Lying on the grass and staring at the clouds while the breeze tickles my nose. The smell of the flowers in the fields. The sound of the cobblestones in the town square as people walk around. The smell of fried foods from the night market stalls. Bubble baths.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Bubble baths?”

O _f course_ this would be an entirely new concept to him- how would one take a bubble bath underwater? 

“Um,” she started slowly, quickly formulating a merfolk-friendly response. “You fill a tub with hot, soapy water until bubbles form, and then you sit in the tub and just...relax. Sometimes the water is infused with herbs. Or milk, to make the skin softer. Bubble baths can be scented, too; my favorite is lavender.”

Cassian was absolutely silent for what felt like several minutes, blinking uncomprehendingly, but just before the air between them became too thick from the awkward silence, his sudden laughter cut through, and Jyn could breathe again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a deep breath to steady his composure. “You were just talking about handing out death sentences; suddenly you’re dreaming about bubble baths that smell like lavender.”

“So I have a soft spot. Does that bother you?”

“Not at all; it makes you-”

He stopped short for some reason. _What was he going to say? It makes me even more_ what _? Strange? Weird?_

... _Likeable?_

She gulped. “Makes me _what_?” she asked hesitantly. Did she really want him to finish the sentence?

Cassian cleared his throat. _Are his ears_ red _?_

“Relatable,” he said with a nervous grin, and her heart thumped against her chest.

Jyn was glad Bodhi wasn’t in the room with her, else he’d notice her eyelashes fluttering and openly call her out on it.

He let out another laugh, a smaller one this time, and asked, “Is it really _that_ rare for people to relate to you?”

“A bit,” she admitted, looking away from him in a limp attempt to hide her face. It was bad enough as it is whenever people looked at her pitifully- she didn’t want to look at him and risk seeing the same look from him. “Most people speak so formally towards me that they never really get to know me. _That_ gets pretty lonely, pretty fast.”

The room fell into a hush at the change in mood, and Jyn almost immediately regretted souring the air between them all over again.

It was time to turn back to the previous topic. “So what’s _your_ home like, Cassian?” she asked. “What are the things you love about it?”

His head again, slowly, once again building the blocks to formulate a response that walked the finest of lines between honesty and secrecy.

“There are these...er, grassy fields that I used to play in a lot. They swished against your face and you could play hide-and-seek in them, they’re just that _tall_.” The glitter of the ocean reflected in his eyes as they shone with a nostalgic joy, the first Jyn had ever seen of him.

“I also really miss the food. We have really good seafood where I’m from,” he continued, excitedly proud with such a bold statement. “Not that your kingdom’s seafood is bad, but food from home always somehow tastes better.”

Jyn nodded at that as well- there wasn’t much that could be any better than the taste of home.

“And then there’s the weather. It’s always perfect- nice and cool. Our summers aren’t muggy, and you can swim any time of the year without worrying about freezing or burning.” He fiddled with his blanket, smiling shyly as he admitted, “I was surprised at how well you all handle your summers. They’re nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. The air is so thick, it’s like living in a pot of steam- you’re basically breathing in water.”

Her chuckle came out a little more robust than she intended as she mused over the irony of a merman being surprised by such a concept. “Between you and me, I can’t handle the summers very well here either,” she admitted in turn. “That’s normally the time of year that I make any excuse I can to just get out and travel to somewhere much more tolerable.”

Cassian nodded as though he finally got the answer to a question he daren’t ask. Part of Jyn wondered if he ever searched for her along the shorelines during the summer, only to find that she’d mysteriously be missing for the season.

“So, anything else you miss about home?” she asked, eager to hear more about his underwater world.

He looked out the window again, but instead of the ocean, he gazed at the fluffy clouds just above the horizon.

“There’s the sunsets...and the sunrises,” he said, distantly wistful. “If you go at just the right time of the day, you could pop out for some fresh air and watch the sun rise or set. But what really makes it special is that, if you travel far enough from the house, you could find yourself surrounded by nothing but beautiful views of the sky. Nothing else gets in the way- wherever you turn, you could see the red, the purple, the blue, the gold...all the colors.”

He looked at her suddenly, and Jyn realized she’d sighed without thinking about it.

Embarrassed, she sat straight up and curled her hands atop her knees, nervously shaking her right leg. “Sorry, it just sounded all so... _perfect._ I’ve never been to a place with tall...ehm, _grassy plains_ to play in, and I don’t think I know of a place that’s deserted enough to be surrounded by colorful skies.” She couldn’t help but look at him pointedly now, caving in just slightly to her desire to reach out to him and tell him about how she wanted ever so much to see the waters he called home, swim through what she assumed were fields of seaweed, and experience the things he loved so much. It was maddeningly complicated for them to be like this: neighbors, barred from ever intermingling because of the transgressions of the selfish and violent ones that came before them.

Cassian’s hair swished softly across his forehead as the breeze blew through the window, but something sparked in his eye in that moment, an expectant gaze so bold and enticing that it reminded Jyn of some of the finest dark rum her senses ever had the privilege of experiencing.

Why was he looking at her like that? Were there any messages to be read between the lines with his stare? Could he, maybe, feel a similar desire to be closer to her and connect with her? She wanted time to just...slow down, anything to sip in the image in front of her and keep it locked away in the ever-growing chest of memories. No one could ever steal this precious treasure from her, but how greedy she felt for wanting to add even more to the trove.

Slowly, his lips parted, just slightly, and he hesitated for a moment, breathing deep, as though he were about to confess something weighing him down.

Would this be the moment where he finally opened up to her?

She stared at his lips, her chest swelling and eyelashes fluttering with embarrassment once again at the memory of their kiss in the middle of the ocean, and how soft and cool his lips were under the blazingly bright sun, and she felt like she could burst at any moment in anticipation of what he might say next if it meant that they could be one step closer to being themselves around each other.

“If I could, I would absolutely love to show you- and the others,” he added suddenly, and, to Jyn’s dismay, the fire in his eyes were quickly extinguished by his half-truths.

She smiled as eagerly as she could, trying her best to hide the prick in her chest as she deflated.

 _Say something else, quick,_ Jyn insisted to herself, _before he sees through your smile_.

“You must miss your loved ones too- I’m sure they’d probably love for you to come home,” she remarked after a beat, opting to ask how much longer he planned to stay as a human.

“I’m sure they miss me a little, but I don’t think they’re particularly worried about me,” Cassian replied nonchalantly. “I _do_ miss my best friend, though. Bit of a bulky guy, older, and a bit... _different_. Sometimes we don’t agree on things, but he always forces me to open my perspective. I appreciate that- he always listens to whatever comes out of my mouth, and doesn’t judge me for it. It sounds weird, but it’s comforting.”

Jyn nodded; she, too, had that in Bodhi.

“But of course I miss my family, even my older brothers.”

“Are you the youngest?”

Cassian nodded. “Aye, and they’d always tease me and call me by a nickname that I hate.”

She cocked her head to the side, eyes wide with curiosity. “What sort of terrible nickname did they give you?”

“Ah, well...they call me ‘Shrimp’.”

Jyn blinked. “That sounds...terrible?” she responded, not entirely sure if she was missing some context. 

Cassian let out a breathy, nervous chuckle. “My mother actually came up with the nickname- but it only sounds nice when it’s coming from her.”

 _Not an orphan,_ she added mentally.

“She calls me that because I’m actually the smallest of the bunch. It sounds cute in your language, but in mine it comes off a bit mean.”

Her eyes widened further as she gawked. “Are you telling me that your brothers are even _taller_ than you?! You’re nearly too tall for this bed as it is!”

“Taller _and_ bigger. I could never really gain muscle the way they do. I found other ways to make up for it, though; they just won’t admit when I’ve outshined them.”

“That’s usually guy-speak for ‘I get paid the most’, or- if the bar is set _really low_ \- ‘I’ve never been jailed’,” she added wryly.

He burst out in laughter; he was settling in a bit more with her presence, and she had to suppress the silly grin trying to make its way onto her face. “No, no one in the family’s ever been jailed- we’re good folk. I just had a really prestigious job before I wound up here.”

Jyn cocked her head curiously. “What sort of job was it?”

“Oh, it’s-”

Cassian stopped abruptly once again, and she noticed the subtle widening of his eyes as he realized he was about to say something dangerously revealing. He blinked once, twice, a third time, and his breathing slowed. The gears in his mind were grinding away in overdrive, she could easily see, and a part of her wondered just how sensitive that information could’ve been.

“It’s hard to explain what the job is, since my country works a bit differently from yours,” he said at last, looking at her directly in the eyes to establish a level of sincerity, but his gaze was more clinical and missing the warmth she’d grown fond of as their conversation carried on.

“Is it really that different?” she asked, worry slowly shaping her frown.

The debate seemed to rage on in his mind. Was his job really merfolk-specific, something so strangely different that it couldn’t be explained in human terms, or was there something more to it than that?

It wasn’t an entirely new idea to her- she’d considered the possibility that perhaps Cassian washed ashore as a spy for merfolks. In fact, his brilliant strategic ingenuity was the biggest red flag- why would anyone lend this sort of brainpower to a foreign nation? It was precisely why she hadn’t promoted him, despite her earlier display of flattery. The further she could keep him away from classified information, the safer it would be, at least until she could figure out what he was really here for.

But she couldn’t very well just leave him behind and send him back out to the waters. He was _human_ , and he was _here_ , on her turf, no less. She came to him a year ago, and proved that she had no intention of harming him when she swam to meet him in the ocean. Perhaps...maybe...he was attempting to do the same.

Jyn clutched her necklace, squeezing the crystal gently as she tried to suppress her fears and tap in to her mother’s advice: _Trust._

“I think the best way I can describe it is that I’m a collector of sorts.”

She squeezed her necklace a shade harder. That could mean a multitude of things- he could be an actual collector of goods, perhaps from the human world, or things from the deepest floors of the ocean.

There was no way the answer was that innocent, not when everything else about him nearly screamed “military”. Jyn couldn’t very well dismiss the possibility of something more dangerous: _Intel._

 _“Trust,”_ her mother’s voice echoed in the back of her mind.

“Was your job more prestigious than your current rank here?” she asked cautiously.

He paused briefly before nodding. “Aye, I’d say so.”

“Then what’s wrong with going back home? What’s stopping you from going back to your family, your prestigious job, the magical sunsets?”

Cassian licked his lips nervously- she’d asked him a question that made him walk that linguistic tightrope all over again.

“I can’t go back,” he confessed. “Not yet, anyway.”

_He’s...stranded?_

She mirrored his nervousness and subtly bit her lip. “Do you...need help returning home?”

His head shake was slow, almost somber, but it contrasted with his rather playful smirk. “There’s still so much I have to do before I even think about trying to find a way home. Aye, it’s true that I miss home, but I’m having fun here. The people are...well, they’re _mostly_ kind to me, and I’ve finally gotten more muscle since I started eating beef. I like my seafood more than yours, but we don’t even have cows and sheep.”

She couldn’t help but laugh- out of all the things to be excited over, he chose _red meat_. “Eat enough beef and you can bulk up like your brothers; the ladies will rush to line up and try court you in no time.” 

He snorted. “Ladies? Lining up for _me_ ? _Okay_ ,” he said sarcastically. “If my brothers ever came to this country, my chances would disappear! I’d be happy if I could even attract _one_.”

Jyn perked up. _Did that mean he was-?_

“Is there someone you’re hoping to win over?” she asked, trying not to sound presumptuous.

Cassian’s ears went red again. So he _was_ interested in someone.

“You realize that you can’t lie about your answer now that your ears are red, right?” Jyn pointed out with a grin.

His neck also became flush with a subtle shade of pink at the remark, and he tousled his hair, rearranging it the best he could to hide his ears. It was amusing to watch him attempt something so futile- he really _was_ embarrassed by the question, wasn’t he?

“Is it that obvious?”

“Your ears look like boiled lobster.”

Cassian’s ears reddened even further, and he fiddled with the blanket again, trying his best not to look her in the eye. “Aye, there’s someone in mind,” he mumbled sheepishly.

Jyn wished it were her, but she knew better than to pry and possibly hurt herself.

But her curiosity was hard to ignore, so she cleared her throat and braced herself for an answer she might not like. “What are they like?”

The redness remained on his ears and neck, but he didn’t bother to hide anything anymore as a smile played across his lips. “She’s dangerous. Ruthless. Back home, she’s been called an anemone. Anemones are charming, and fish sometimes swim near it because they think it’s a safe place to be around, but if you’re not careful, they could eat you alive. So many sea creatures fall for the anemone, and the anemone continues to kill.”

Was he even translating his thoughts correctly? If she heard him right, he was enamored with an assassin.

“That doesn’t sound safe,” she said hesitantly.

“Aye, anemones are dangerous to sea creatures. Lethal, even. But anemones coexist peacefully with some sea creatures, and even give them a home. They don’t eat just any creature.”

Cassian looked at her again and the intense boldness in his eyes returned. Despite the fine wrinkles across his forehead and the scruff on his face, he looked like a young fool uselessly and helplessly in love with words of promise and devotion bubbling in his chest, wanting to burst out in shouts from the rooftops.

“This person...she protects others close to her, and her eyes shine when she’s, as you say, ‘in her element’. The way she moves is so swift, but sharp, and deadly all at once. It takes my breath away every time. I’ve seen her beauty, I’ve seen her kindness, and I’ve seen her strength. To me, she’s one-of-a-kind. If I could, I’d tell her how I feel, and make sure to show it.”

“What,” she chuckled, “Do you plan to go up to her and swoop her up for a kiss?”

He shook his head. “Kind of. Kisses are a bit different where I’m from. If we’re infatuated with someone, it’s a bit...obvious. But we don’t really kiss the lips like people do here.”

Jyn’s face went flush this time as the mention of kisses caused her to mentally peek into her precious treasure chest and indulge in the memory of how closely he held her, how light-headed he made her feel when he pressed his lips harder against hers, how her heart raced faster and faster the longer her feet brushed against his slippery tail as they floated just above the surface of the ocean. She’d give just about anything to relive that moment, to feel that rush through her veins once more and get lost in the sensation as his hands gripped her in reassurance, as though to say, “I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.” Not that she’d ever admit it to anyone, but she’s had her fair share of late nights staring out into the moonlit ocean since that day, wondering if she’d ever get to kiss him like that again.

“What do you do instead?” Curiosity was going to be the death of her, she was sure of it.

Cassian’s eyebrows furrowed in thought once more, and she saw the gears turning again as he attempted to find a land-friendly explanation.

“We kiss to show appreciation. When my mother kisses my forehead, she does it to honor my thinking, because I said or did something smart. A kiss on the hand honors a good deed at the hands of another. Kisses on the lips are for the words we say.”

She noticed that his fingers had begun to fidget- it seemed as though he was embarrassed to speak about it any more, like she’d asked him something intensely personal. But before she could ask for more, he let out a breathy laugh, as though he were dismissing his own silly reservations. The smile remained, both out of nervousness and excitement, it seemed, and his gaze was meaningful as he revealed:

“When you love someone, you honor their heart and everything it gives you.”

Her heart pounded. _Did that mean_ -?

“I know it sounds strange, but where I’m from, when we find that special someone, we don’t kiss their lips; we kiss their chest.” He brought a hand up and his fingers, still scuffed from yesterday’s injuries, pressed at his chest, right at the sternum. Jyn’s eyes trailed along his hand and she noticed how bare and finless his forearm was, another reminder of his human state.

“If I could, I wouldn’t kiss her on the lips. I don’t want to just honor the words she says; I want to honor her entire existence, and how much I’ve enjoyed it.”

The pounding in her chest intensified, frantically booming in a frenzied drumbeat. What _was_ this feeling? Anxiety? Pain? _Hope_?

Before she realized what she was doing, Jyn leaned forward and placed a hand on Cassian’s blanketed leg. “If you feel this strongly about her, you should tell her.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, and she matched his gaze with a pleading one of her own.

_Is it me? Do you feel the same way I do?_

Jyn expected to see him smile at her encouragement.

It never came.

“...I can’t,” he said in as level a tone as he could possibly muster, but it wasn’t enough to conceal the slight hollowness in his voice.

“She comes from another country,” he continued. “And, um, her country and mine aren’t on good terms. If, somehow, we became a couple, our lives would be in danger. Our loved ones would be in danger. A war could break out, if we’re not careful. I couldn’t do that to her.”

Reality slapped her across the face. She’d spent her entire life weaving her way through the fragile web of politics that her kingdom was entangled in, but never once did she think to extend that knowledge to the merfolk. In wanting to get to know Cassian for the merman that he was, she had pushed him into uncomfortable territory, and her selfish desires made her so naive, so blind to the fact that so much more could be at stake just by revealing his true identity.

Her heart didn’t just stop pounding- it stopped _entirely_.

“You don’t want to tell her because you’re afraid she’ll return those feelings,” she murmured, as if saying it quieter would make the words less true.

The smile finally came, but it was far from a comforting one. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Captain,” he said reassuringly, and she could practically hear the walls of formality building themselves back up around him, shutting her out.

The “game” was over.

“Cassian-”

He held up a hand to stop her. “Captain.”

She winced- it was the first time it ever hurt to be referred to by her rank.

“It’s alright,” he said with more confidence. “She left me with a really nice memory- I’ll never forget it.”

Jyn perked up slightly. “Oh?”

His ears, having gone back to their regular skin tone for a while now, reddened again, but rather than looking shy and flustered, his eyes fixated on hers as he beamed. “She kissed me once. On the lips. I don’t think it was meant to be romantic- I think she was trying to thank me for something, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. But it still meant a lot to me.”

Her heart raced again. _Did that mean…?_

It was bittersweet- they both treasured this one shared memory, and she was sure now more than ever that her feelings were certainly _not_ unrequited. But it was impossible to ignore their differences, no matter how much she wanted to.

Something sparked in her amidst her frustration with their circumstances. There had to be a way around it. There just _had_ to be.

Jyn stood with determination. “Walls are made to be surmounted.”

Cassian blinked. “Captain?”

“Walls, Sergeant,” she repeated. “They’re made to be surmounted. General Steela lives by those words. We should, too.”

“Sir, I don’t think I follow,” he said slowly.

“Rebellions are built on hope, are they not, Andor?”

“Aye, I’ve said that,” he responded nodded cautiously, still not catching on.

“We’re going to have to rebel a bit if we want to surmount those walls.”

“What sort of walls does someone like yourself need to surmount?” he asked curiously.

“Plenty, actually,” she chuckled as she headed for the door. “I’ve sort of...grown fond of someone myself.”

Cassian sat up a little straighter.

“But we can’t really be together either.”

He nodded. “Is it because he’s not a prince?”

“That’s part of the reason, yes,” she responded coolly. “But I’m worried we have other differences that we can’t overcome.”

He was silent, looking down at his hands and nodding somberly in understanding.

“I want to overcome them, though, especially since he saved my life, and Bodhi’s.”

Cassian was still looking down at his hands as he froze.

“About a year ago, one of our ships was under attack. The debris dragged us both down and we couldn’t free ourselves from it. But he swam into the depths and cut us loose to save us both. He even retrieved the necklace my mother gave me,” she continued, her fingers absentmindedly brushing over the crystal around her neck. “I thought, when I came to, that it was gone for good. He must have known that it meant a lot to me, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to return it.”

He whipped his head to look at her, eyes widened subtly. Cassian’s lips parted, just a bit, less out of shock, but more as though he were finally ready to blurt something out.

She cleared her throat to stop him. With the way their remarks became less subtle by the minute, this could have been their moment of truth, the one she’d yearned for when she stepped into his room in the first place, but Jyn decided that the length of her visit had grown questionable for someone of her rank. “Anyway, Sergeant, I should leave you be. But I’m glad to hear you’re comfortable and recovering. Rest up- we ship out tomorrow, and I need you as close to full health as possible.”

There was a slightly dejected slump to his posture at her self-dismissal. Nonetheless, there was a hint of hopefulness underneath his ever-professional tone: “Yes, Captain.”

Jyn gripped the door handle, the determination swelling in her chest. Something could be done about their dilemma. She would make sure of it. Somehow. She wasn’t a princess for nothing.

The door opened smoothly and without so much as a feeble squeak.

“By the way, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir?”

She turned slightly to look back at him. _One last look, just one more, while we’re still technically alone._

Does she _dare_ think it?

He was more beautiful now then he was back then.

Cassian was indeed a bit bulkier now that he’d come ashore, and his hair had grown longer in the process, and perhaps the fatigue under his eyes and the small crease between his brows had become a bit more pronounced, but it never took away from the bright youthfulness in his eyes. They looked the same as they did when he returned the necklace to her- kind, friendly, trustworthy. Looking back, it made her feel silly for even doubting his motives in the first place, even _if_ the princess in her would’ve done so with everyone else.

There would soon be more opportunities for her to make Cassian’s heart race just as he did with hers, this she knew, and she had to force herself to keep from grinning at the idea now that the formalities have returned.

“Have some hope, Andor. It’s my understanding that anemone get along well with shrimp. And, personally, I’ve grown to really like Shrimp.”

The mix of confusion, shock, and optimism on Cassian’s face as the door closed behind her was priceless.


End file.
